I hope you don’t mind that this is more about my boys dad than them, but they’re such a huge part of my decision making here.

I’ve posted here once before, right after I found out my partner of six years had just spent two years off and on fucking his colleague and best friend. He ended things, at first it seems like she thought it could continue at work but he said they couldn’t even be friends anymore. He’s blocked her everywhere now (like whackamole, whenever he blocked one place she’d pop up on another platform). She quit her job. He says he doesn’t miss her, or even think about her until I bring her up. I believe him, he’s pretty cold.

I stayed, but have been honest about how destroyed I feel. Just absolutely smashed to my very foundations. I am broken-hearted. The first month or so, he was utterly humble and sorry and patient and willing to work with me to make a better future together. He didn’t do much though. (“I just don’t think about doing things, all I want to do is play Xbox and go to bed. It’s not like we can afford a night away or even a date night. You know I hate being told what to do”)

Then he stopped taking his depression medication, and ended up off work for ten weeks trying to get his head balanced and right again. During this time he was awful to me for the most part, snappy and unpleasant and lazy and mean. After a few weeks of this I told him I had had enough, I needed out of our situation for a while, and he needed to do some serious thinking. The boys (Aiden, 3, and Daniel, 11 months) and I had a few fun sleepovers at my mums place, and I had a few nights on my best friends couch while he had daddy time with them.

During those few weeks, we talked a lot. At first he was very “I don’t care, you left me so it’s done”. I started looking for somewhere for the boys and I to live. We’re currently in a one bedroom house so I’ve been looking (FOREVER) anyway, it was just a case of changing the applications from joint to single and trying to get a higher priority because of my urgent need.

But then he started softening up towards me, and I’m a sucker for that, it’s all I ever wanted from him. We started having fun together again. Basically, he was taking his antidepressants regularly. I stopped arranging nights away from home. He promised to think a little more about how I feel, and how his behaviour affects me. He also went back to work and obviously it was good for him. We had a great few weeks! lol

The last few days, I’ve noticed he’s stopped taking his medication again. It’s showing in his behaviour, his attitude to me and the way he treats the boys. He’s short with us, impatient, and flies off the handle over nothing. The last two days, he hasn’t gone to work. It’s escalating too - in the last three days, he’s punched a hole in our coffee table (he was watching the baby and Daniel was crying and whiny, but he’s cutting like 4 teeth, so just get the fucking teething gel) and threw a coke bottle at our front door so hard there’s a little hole in the plastic, right at eye level, an inch away from the pane of glass (Aiden picked up the bottle, which had about an inch of coke left in it, and shook it). I can’t let the boys stay in that situation. I don’t feel like they’re in danger of harm but they shouldn’t have to experience his inability to control himself.

I feel terrible I haven’t gotten them out already. I feel like I can’t even talk about this escalation with him because of how he’ll react. I don’t think he’d hurt me and I know he wouldn’t hurt the boys, but this is not the environment for them at all. I’m sure they could unfortunately feel the tension sometimes but we’ve been keeping things as normal as possible for them, explaining nights away as sleepovers or camping, and my mum or best friend have taken them to the park for a few hours on days when we’ve really needed to talk about something. I’m trying here, man.

And I don’t even know why! He’s horrible to me! He cheated on me! So many times! He told another woman he was going to leave me for her! He’s an asshole, my mum told me the other day she won’t ever forgive him (but has been wonderfully civil, actually convincingly friendly). He hasn’t made any effort to do anything nice for me at all. I told him I needed to be wooed a little to heal some of this hurt and he hasn’t done a fucking thing. Admittedly we’re broke as a joke at the best of times, I’m not expecting dinner out, but fuck me. Make dinner for us one night after the boys are in bed and just talk to me? I’m really not asking for much here. And I’m not even getting that.

I knew that this feeling I have right now was how this was going to end up. I told him too. I just don’t want anything from him anymore. I don’t even care that he’s not doing anything nice for me, I just want him to not be horrible to me, and he can’t even do that half the time. I wish I didn’t feel like this but I do. I’ve done all the trying to save this relationship that he destroyed and he’s proving to me all the time how little he cares for me or thinks of me. He says he loves me and I think he probably believes that but he’s not treating me like he even likes me sometimes. I’ve literally done everything for this idiot for years and he appreciates me so little he spent the tiny windfall our family got a few months ago on a hotel room to fuck his side piece in.

When I first found out, I was in the “hysterical bonding” phase for a while. But when that faded and the anger set in, it hasn’t really gone away. He just keeps stoking that fire. It’s like every day he adds a few more bullet points on the list of reasons I should have already left him.

I wish I didn’t love him so much. My god I was so happy. He was my dream come true and I had everything I had ever wanted in the world. He ruined so much. I haven’t had an easy ride of life at all and when I met him it’s like everything was better. I knew he was the one for me immediately and have never questioned that we’d be together forever. When he proposed to me two years ago, he had already fucked her. That’s probably why he did it now I think about it.

I’m just venting. I’m not looking for advice. If you’ve even read all of this and feel like you want to say something, encouragement and empathy is honestly all I can handle. I’ve had enough advice offline, and I’ve embraced the stuff I didn’t want to hear as the stuff I’ve needed to hear, and it has helped build me to this point. I really don’t want to leave. I really don’t want this to be the end of this family unit. I can see so many opportunities for happy memories to be made together, if he just joins in. But it’s like he won’t. The only explanation is that he doesn’t want to. So I’m wasting time waiting for him to give a shit, and I feel like I’ve wasted just about enough. He says he loves me but I don’t feel it.

I guess now I just need to tell him? Fuck.